Rowley Gallery Blog
Long ago I made cups, real ones out of porcelain to be exact. And now I don’t do that anymore. Instead, I often paint pictures of cups. It began innocently enough, as a path for transposing the ceramic cups that had always inspired my pottery into paintings. This simple idea launched an obsession and soon my desire to paint cups got a little bit out of hand. Because I had so many different ideas, I began numbering them in an effort to hold it all together. Continue reading “100 Cups”
A lovely King Penguin book from 1955, donated to The Rowley Gallery library by Evelyn Hallewell. The colour plates are by Peter Shepheard and the book was a bargain at 5/-.
As well as being a beautiful picture book ‘Woodland Birds’ will lead many out to watch for themselves the inhabitants of our woods and forests. Continue reading “Woodland Birds”
First Light
These new works are borne out of a need to bring light and life into my studio during the dark winter months. They have a direct link with my garden and the majority of the plants and birds in these paintings can be seen from my kitchen window. Continue reading “First Light”
No sooner had I posted the previous piece about Anne Davies and her appearance in Discover Art magazine than I received an email from James Read, and another blog post arrived fully formed, again courtesy of Discover Art. Continue reading “Ripping Yarns”
Paul Finn is exhibiting 10 paintings and 10 prints inspired by his visits to The Beth Chatto Gardens and Warley Place, both places featured in his A Tale Of Two Gardens. Huw Morgan is exhibiting a selection of his illustrations of birds. They can both be seen at the Well House Gallery, Oxley House, High Road, Horndon on the Hill, Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, SS17 8LF.
Dear Chris, I have just designed the new EP cover for Cosmo Sheldrake. I thought you might be interested in including it in Frames of Reference. Thank you. All the very best, Bea. Continue reading “Pelicans We”
I’m not going to pretend a partridge in a pear tree is the most original of Christmas card ideas but I had been drawing a lot of birds and a lot of fruit and it did fit the brief rather nicely so I didn’t drift too far for inspiration. Continue reading “A Partridge In A Pear Tree”
Here’s a wonderful new album by the Frank Harrison Trio, recorded live at The Verdict in Brighton. It’s not very hi-fi, Frank simply put his digital recorder on the stage and pressed the record button, but it manages to capture the enthusiasm and the energy and the empathy between the three musicians. It’s available free from Frank’s website, but if you want my favourite track you should buy the CD. And there’s a great drawing by Andrew Walton on the cover. Here’s a little taste…
Jitterbug Waltz: Frank Harrison, piano; Dave Whitford, double bass; Enzo Zirilli, drums.
Frank Harrison Trio | Live At The Verdict
Hanna Tuulikki’s ‘Air falbh leis na h-eòin’ is a body of work exploring the mimesis of birds in Gaelic song. On the 29th and 30th of August it becomes a sited performance on the Isle of Canna.
Hanna’s vocal composition, ‘Guth an Eòin | Voice of the Bird’ is the heart of the project. Written for a female vocal ensemble, it reinterprets archival material, fragmenting and re-weaving extracts of Gaelic songs into an extended soundscape. The music emerges from, and responds to, island landscapes and lives. It explores the delicate equilibrium of Hebridean life, the co-existence of tradition and innovation, and suggests the ever-present inter-relationship between bird, human, and ecology.
“The piece is made from weaving together fragments of traditional songs and poems that imitate or emulate birdsong” Tuulikki explains. “Each of the five movements represents a different habitat and bird community – wader, sea-bird, wildfowl, corvid, and cuckoo. In August we will perform the concert in the historic harbour of the beautiful Isle of Canna, where the music reverberates with the bird-calls and the ebb of the tide. The setting is so important to the piece. The Small Isles are a magical place and, to me, the performance begins as soon as people climb on-board the ferry-boat to make the crossing: the richness of the experience is people sharing a journey.”
SNAP HQ, a cor-ten steel shed at Snape Maltings, nerve centre of the SNAP visual arts programme for this year’s Aldeburgh Festival, directing our gaze towards the great Suffolk sky. Continue reading “The Sky At Snape”